I know that it is still winter. In fact many parts of the country are dealing with the harsh reality of winter as I sit here. There was a story on NPR the other morning about snow plow drivers in New Hampshire being sleep deprived. Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow even though the day was cloudy and decided that we would indeed have six more weeks of winter. I have no idea what's keeping the people in the East coast from going postal on Punxsutawney Phil other than immobilization from mountains of snow. I still suspect that Punxsutawney Phil better watch his back. 

The Midwest on the other hand, is experiencing it's warmest winter to date. We have days where the high is just above freezing followed by days of Spring like temperatures. Last Wednesday it snowed about two to three inches. By Saturday the highs where in the sixties and most of the snow was melted. It's been doing this kind of thing for weeks now. One day it's twenty seven degrees outside and the next day it's seventy.  I was used to this kind of thing living in Oklahoma, but I'm a little surprised by it here in KCMO. Sunday was one of those days where the temperatures reached seventy. I had had family in town on Saturday so chores like grocery shopping and laundry got put off to Sunday. As I stood in the kitchen washing dishes, I looked out into the backyard filled with sunlight. I could see our sad garden boxes full of leaves and left over plants that I never got around to pulling up. When Michael walked in to the kitchen I looked at him and said "I'm going to clean out the garden beds today." And that's what I did. Josephine helped me gather leaves and pull out plants and weeds. I still need to turn the beds and mix in some new dirt, but we should be ready to start planting in the Spring. 

While I cleaned out the gardens, Michael started working on his work table in the basement. He reached a point where he needed to go to the hardware store and suggested that we both go and take the scooters. That trip to the hardware store turned into a two hour excursion. Of course when we started the scooters, both were sitting on empty. This meant travelling over to the gas station on State Line because we know they have ethanol free gas. I needed to drop by work for something, so we took the scenic route through the country club area and past Loose Park. The park was full of people walking and jogging and just taking advantage of the weather. Once we got to work, we decided we were hungry and this took us on another scenic route that took us by the hardware store and Chipotle. We finished the ride with a trip to Trader Joe's because there were a couple of things I had missed earlier when I was there for groceries. 

That first scooter ride after months and months of not being able to ride is always sweetest. This is the time of year when the weather begins to tease us with the possibility of Spring. So when those seventy degree days pop up there is no better way to celebrate than by turning a mundane errand into a two hour jaunt on scooters. It's something to savor. It's a moment of joy to look back on when the next day is below thirty. It's a promise that eventually winter will end and every day will be a scooter day. 

You guys getting hit with all that snow? I promise, Spring will be here before you know it. Here's to hope and here's to a lovely Love Thursday.